Swamping The Media

New Commerce Committee Chairman Tauzin Holds Key on Broadband Issues

Adapted from an article in the March 2001 issue of Brill's Content.

As chairman of the House energy and commerce committee, a Louisiana Republican named Billy Tauzin is the new administration's congressional point man on the vast range of federal policy governing energy, health care, the environment and telecommunications. A sign of the critical importance of that chairmanship: Tauzin's first call of congratulations came from President-elect George W. Bush.

Even before Tauzin became chairman of the full commerce committee in January, he had moved aggressively, as head of its telecommunications subcommittee, to tackle the hot-button issue of the television networks' botched election-night calls. Tauzin says he feels strongly that "biased" reporting by the networks needs to be fixed.

The networks are listening. Indeed, Tauzin has long had the ear of the network-news presidents -- and their bosses. As chair of the subcommittee on telecommunications, trade and consumer protection, Tauzin introduced bills that would support foreign ownership of TV stations, create a blue-ribbon panel to study overhauling the Federal Communications Commission, and phase out the so-called E-rate, a fee that telephone companies pay that funds access to the Internet for schools and libraries. He helped lead the charge against creating low-power FM radio stations, a move large broadcasters applauded because they worried such stations would impede their signals.

Media companies know Tauzin holds the key to the future of their industry, whether it is broadband Internet, digital television or support for the next megamerger. So when he aired his complaints about election-night coverage, the networks offered responses that were respectful and apologetic.

Last month, the presidents of the major television news organizations appeared in Washington at Tauzin's bidding to answer questions at a high-profile hearing on The Uniform Poll Closing Act. "If such an act were adopted, CNN would not make any projections until all the polls were closed nationwide," CNN News Group chairman Tom Johnson testified.

Although Tauzin commands the media's attention when he wants it, some question whether he will press his criticisms. Watchdog groups point out that he's a good friend to broadcasters: A host of media companies eagerly signed up to pay for his A-list party at the Republican National Convention last year. He supports their legislative agenda, takes their campaign contributions and attends their all-expenses-paid "seminars" in warm climes.

Nevertheless, supporters such as Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who has worked with him, warn: "These guys who go before his committee will rue the day if they don't take this seriously. He is so tenacious, and he never loses ... Don't get on his bad side, or you and your industry will regret it for a long, long time."

But Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education, who has clashed with Tauzin for years over broadcast regulation, is skeptical.

"He may do a Cajun yell, but at the end of the day, [the network executives] know they'll be sharing a big bowl of gumbo with him," says Chester. "The term `good ole pol' was invented for Billy Tauzin, and as long as he is in power, the media industries have no fear."

Such conflicting opinions about Tauzin are telling. In his 12 terms in Congress Tauzin, 57, has been both a Democrat and a Republican, a reformer and a keeper of the status quo, a patron of big business and champion of the little guy. Tauzin's home district, 13 parishes on the Gulf coast, gave him 78% of the vote last year. He is Louisiana-born-and-bred, and his blue-collar roots run deep; he put himself through college and law school by working on oil rigs.

Reflecting his district, Tauzin has always been conservative -- a Boll Weevil Democrat during the Reagan years and one of only two Democrats to support all the provisions on Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. He left the Democratic Party in 1995, claiming it no longer offered a place for conservative voices. The move gave his career a boost: He became chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee in 1997.

Tauzin likes to be taken for a good ole boy from the bayou, but the down-home act is just that. He is as much a creature of Washington as he is of the Louisiana swamps, and his Capitol Hill nickname -- Swamp Fox -- goes far toward acknowledging his dual personae. As one Democratic staffer for the energy and commerce committee puts it: "Billy's a hot dog. But smart."

Even by his adversaries' accounts, Tauzin is not only one of the smartest members of Congress, but one who thrives on complicated public policy. He worked tirelessly to put satellite-television companies on the same footing as cable television, spearheading legislation that ensured them equal access to the same programming and allowed them to broadcast local television signals so that consumers could watch their hometown stations via satellite.

Tauzin was also an important player in forcing the entertainment industry to adopt the current television-rating system, which is more specific (V for violence, L for language, S for sexual situations and D for sexually suggestive dialogue) than the movie ratings. He held hearings about Internet privacy and is pushing the industry to create its own rules for protecting individuals' online data.

Lobbyists say they love him because they don't have to educate him.

"He knows these issues cold," says Jack Valenti, president/CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, who helped negotiate the television-rating guidelines Tauzin pushed. "You would think, well. he's a good ole boy, but he's got a brain that's as sharp as three lasers."

Tauzin's fans describe him as one of the new power brokers in the Republican Party and compare him to another Southern-bred politician: Bill Clinton. The two share a strange hybrid of wonkiness and people skills and are known for their lust for public life. Like Clinton, Tauzin is famous for his communication talents and his ability to size up a crowd. He prepares his own speeches and rarely speaks with notes.

"Billy is the type of guy who, when you go into a cocktail party, you realize that there are five or 10 people in a circle and there are gales of laughter coming from that circle." says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a lawyer with the public-interest Media Access Project. "Billy is always in the middle."

Tauzin wasted no time getting in the middle of the election controversy. On Nov. 9, two days after the vote, he sent letters to all the network presidents, demanding to know how and why they had made their projections.

Not one to miss a chance for publicity, Tauzin called a news conference to say he was planning to bring in the CEOs of the networks' corporate parents for a public hearing.

Then, a week later, Tauzin called another news conference to announce his preliminary findings, including: CNN had delayed calling states for Bush nine times -- even when his margin was more than 6%. But CNN had called every state that Gore had won with a similar margin at the time the polls closed.

Assailing network "bias," Tauzin contended the disparity in announcing the winners reduced voter turnout on the West Coast, possibly causing five Re publican House members from California to lose and possibly costing Bush the popular vote.

Although the networks insist their reporting was not biased, they quickly owned up to their mistakes. Within days, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN announced that they were conducting internal reviews. In late November, ABC News announced reforms, including a commitment to make projections only after polls close, a pledge later joined by CBS News and NBC News.

Tauzin had a host of motives for jumping into the election-coverage fray.

First, bashing the media is an easy way to shore up his conservative base. Second, Tauzin can show independence from the broadcast lobby -- a group to which he is often accused of being too close. (His daughter, Kristi, even worked at the National Association of Broadcasters.) In 1997, conservative columnist William Satire labeled him "a wholly owned subsidiary" of the broadcasters.

Besides, the result will likely be inconsequential. "Everything I'm hearing now from [Tauzin] strikes me as so much hollow rhetoric, kind of like Gore and Lieberman posturing on violence in Hollywood," says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a group. "Let's tie honest. Lawmakers beat up on the networks every four years after the presidential election."

One major roadblock for any legislation Congress may want to aim at network news: the First Amendment. Tauzin concedes the Constitution is clear. "There is nothing I know of in the Constitution that would prevent them from making these projections in the middle of the afternoon and really screwing things up," he says. "This has to come by agreement."

Still, some news executives worry Tauzin's power over their parent companies could trickle down to the news divisions.

"Once you use the authority of the United States government to talk about news, that is a slippery slope that we all ought to try to avoid," says Bruce Collins, corporate VP/general counsel of C-SPAN. "Business people tend to be more responsive to the pressure of Congress -- to the detriment of the newsgathering."

Tauzin knows the business side of journalism well, and he is friendly with most of those who represent big media companies. He frequently plays tennis with a group of lobbyists, including Robert Okun, the chief lobbyist for NBC, and Timothy McKone, who represents SBC Communications, a large telecommunications provider. He often invites lobbyists to hunt on his farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Tauzin himself has no problem accepting perks: fact-finding missions to foreign countries and resorts, sports events watched from corporate boxes and lavish parties underwritten by corporations. A recent report by the Center for Public Integrity found that between 1997 and mid-2000, Tauzin and his senior staff took 42 media-sponsored trips (more than double that of other members of Congress) to places ranging from Paris to New York City to Palm Springs. Tauzin took his wife on the six-day trip to Paris for a conference on e-commerce paid for by Time Warner and Instinet, a subsidiary of Reuters. The total cost: $18,910.

"You can't make decisions involving billion-dollar industries with your head stuck in the sand back in Washington," says his spokesman Ken Johnson. The report also found that from 1993 to 2000, Tauzin received $109,575 in contributions from media companies.

All the money and trips, says Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, makes it hard for the congressman to be credible when he is bashing the media. "I can't think of any issue where he has gone after them or, God forbid, regulated them," Lewis says. "There is a credibility problem here. He is arguably their best friend in Congress."

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Tauzin raised $67,776 from entertainment industries and $92,268 from telecommunications companies for his 2000 campaign. Top donors included The Walt Disney Company, which gave $12,000; the National Association of Broadcasters, $10,000; and SBC Communications, $10,250.

Tauzin doesn't disagree that he has been close to media companies. "I tend to be sympathetic to them," he says. "I'm sympathetic to anybody in the communication industry that is overregulated and restricted."

He has sponsored a bill that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission and states from making rules that govern the emerging broadband Internet. Tauzin's bill would allow the market, not the government, to determine how much Internet access would cost and what conditions companies would have to fill to get into the business. "What guides me is whether consumers have choices," says Tauzin. "If industry is on the side of free markets and opening markets, they'll find me as a friend."

A prime example of Tauzin's coziness with media companies was his party at last year's Republican National Convention. The Mardi Gras-themed fete, held at the Philadelphia Navy Yard for about 2,000 friends and supporters, was the marquee event of a week of over-the-top parties.

Organizers imported floats from New Orleans, and guests feasted on alligator, roast pig, and po'boys. Hurricanes, a specialty drink of the French Quarter, flowed freely. Revelers danced to the Neville Family Celebration and the Bayou Boys. The estimated $400,000 tab wax picked up by media, telecommunications and energy companies, including Disney (ABC), Time Warner (CNN) and General Electric (NBC).

"... For many people who went, it was more important than seeing Bush," says one lobbyist. "Frankly, a lot of telecommunications policy will run through that [energy, and commerce] committee, and if you are in the business, you're going to be more interested in talking to Billy Tauzin than [to] George Bush."

"[ABC] did a hit-piece on my [Mardi Gras] party," Tauzin says with pride. ABC called it "a huge corporate event with hidden donors, but the funny thing was that ABC was one of the sponsors of the event." Tauzin says he passed out dozens of tickets to ABC executives and that all the tickets listed the "hidden" sponsors on the back. Preston Padden, Disney's chief Washington lobbyist, says he had no idea what the news division was doing.

The party also showcased Tauzin's growing importance as a fund-raiser. Aside from raising money for his own reelection (according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Tauzin spent more

than $1.3 million on his race in 2000, though he faced only weak opposition), he has his own political action committee, the Bayou Leader PAC, which raises money for other Republicans. Last year, the PAC gave $293,204 to candidates. Tauzin also hosted at least 15 "Cajun cookouts" on behalf of candidates; in all he raised close to $9 million for Republican candidates and the party.

Tauzin's friends say tarring money from media companies is part of the game. "I don't think Billy plays favorites," says SBC's McKone. "He [believes] in general terms ... the government should not have a hand in the business world. I think most businesses agree with that philosophy."

Reed Hundt says that while he was chairman of the FCC under Clinton, he felt like a "drum for Billy to beat." But, Hundt adds, "I don't think flint Billy does one thing because of a contribution."

As subcommittee chairman, Tauzin pushed the deregulation of the telecommunications industry and has been fighting with the FCC for slowing the Bell companies' entry into the long-distance market. He has long supported pet issues of the broadcast industry, such as opposition to auctioning off the digital spectrum, giving free airtime to political candidates and regulating liquor advertising.

Tauzin is also working to reform the FCC's role in media mergers; he has been critical of that agency's review of the America Online Time Warner merger, complaining that the process allowed competitors to seek unfair restrictions against the new company. He opposes most taxes on e-commerce and is working to eliminate levies on long-distance phone service.

While on the subcommittee, Tauzin authorized the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget each year and generally supported budget increases for the CPB, although he took PBS, its beneficiary, to task for swapping its donor lists with political organizations.

Now Tauzin will have the position, and the White House support, to carry out much more of his legislative agenda. Most observers say he will dominate the committee like no other chairman before him. "He will be the most powerful commerce chairman in history, mark my words," says pollster Luntz.

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